Integrating online education with on-campus classrooms
A broad international debate is paramount for urban planning education. To this end, the Bridge DOCS research project aims to connect students from online courses with students in on-campus classrooms. Igor T.M. Pessoa and Roberto Rocco received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship grant of € 50.000,- to develop the necessary platform. They will start with connecting first year Urbanism students with students from the MOOC ‘Rethink the city’.
Increasing the range of urban planning practices encourages students to think creatively and develop a critical perspective. The outstanding international aspect of the online courses from TU Delft is reflected in our on-campus classrooms, but there is little integration between these groups of students. The Bridging DOCS project aims to connect on-campus students with students from online courses. This integration will start with the development of a platform connecting first year students of the ‘Methodology for Urbanism’ MSc course with participants to the ‘Rethink the city’ MOOC. The case studies and the discussions from the online course will broaden the debate in the on-campus course, increase diversity of perspectives, and bring a critical international perspective to the classroom. The project has the potential to be expanded to other master disciplines inside and outside the faculty. The over-all goal is to transfer the diversity, richness and fun from virtual MOOCs into TU Delft classrooms. Simultaneously, the MOOC offers the opportunity for students in remote places all around the globe to not only access TU Delft education, but to have an enhanced experience with the on-campus class integration.
The Comenius Teaching Fellowship supports small-scale innovation in higher education. The Teaching Fellow becomes part of a network of Comenius fellows at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences [KNAW in Dutch]. This enables professionals in higher education to implement their ideals and ideas in practice. Igor T.M. Pessoa and Roberto Rocco are the first Comenius Teaching Fellows of BK Bouwkunde.